As far as 10 man guilds, they would probably have more difficulties, because they would need to recruit to expand their roster by 50%, but would hopefully have 6+ months notice to do it. They would have to choose between opening heavy recruitment, or merging with another 10 man guild. 2 10 man guilds that merge would probably have just about exactly the correct roster size by the start of the next expansion assuming roster turn over.

As 10man Hardcore Raider, we are happy if we a get a single capable Recruit within Months.

And you cannot merge 10man Raids like "now Kiss" and that's it, merging Guilds is often very difficult because you cannot have a single supreme leader and your raid often ends up in 2 groups, former Guild A and former Guild B which causes a problem if ever tensions between raid members arise.

As a dude who raids in both 10s and 25s, I find this entire discussion pretty fucking stupid. 10s are easier in some situations, 25s are more difficult in others. The amount of generalizations and overall inept assumption players from either camp make about the other group are laughable at best and outright depressingly contrived at worst. Unfortunately, due to the competitive nature of this game, I think 25M raiders will always see 10M raiders as "inferior" because of the inherent lack of logistical effort needed to organize the latter. Personally, however, I will say that the amount of pressure for me to perform optimally in my 10M guild is much higher than in my 25M guild.

I am, however, unemployed atm so my raiding situation will likely be changing soon. >_>;

Wish mods would delete threads with responses that was 25vs10 when op clearly stating not wanting to discuss this.

on topic

key points:

* 25mans are harder to manage for guild leaders
* avarage skill in each guild are signifcantly lower in 25 then 10 due to being more in numbers.
* certain fights are easier or harder on 25 due to various reasons.
* harder to have substitutes in 10man guilds
* loot is similar and not enough reward in 25 to make up for the work (accepted world firsts is not a valid reason lol)

Blizzard solution which be based on those facts that we all know. I assume a fix to the problem would bring 25man down to 20 to get more easy comparissons between the 2 types of raid sizes, it would close the gap.
Another solution which totally contradict blizzards "bring the player not the class" philosophy is to limit the number of each class you can bring.For 10man the limit could be 2 for 25 it could be 3-4.

You could also splitt them again but in another way. keep the raid sizes but have 2 completely different raids for each size with different loot and tiers and if you do one you can't do the other as you get saved to both when you do one, but 1 will be 25 man only and the other 10 man only, related theme but 2 different parts of the lore of the place, also if you get achievements for 1 dungeon you can never ever get it for the next dungeon as this achievement "table" will be activated the first time you enter the dungeon.
I don't think you can have these 2 raid sizes and do the same content and not have arguements and one side being favorable, you need to make it a real choice not a easy way out.
I know like 0.01% want to see everything in the game but a small price to pay for the greater good.

The first sentence of this topic is "Any news on 25men raiding and incentives for them?"

My argument is and always has been that they already receive a plethora of incentives. Some people just like the added in-raid challenge of 10m. I'm thinking their "controversial" new change will be to increase the difficultly of 25m to finally have it on par with 10m. Maybe take away brezes or drops per boss. Maybe tighten the enrage timers for the currently under-tuned 25m bosses, I don't know.

I think Khedgar was on the right track with his hypothesis about server population being a predominant factor.

[QUOTE=Nairobi;19666841]The following post is my interpretation/wish, as a 25m HC raider:

I am hoping that it is simply pre-upgraded (either 1/2 or 2/2) items. Seems to be the most logical, as it would simply be a head start for 25mans, not an entire leg-up over 10s. 10man would still be able to get to the gear level of 25, and in the end everyone would be on an equal playing field.

That said, that idea makes far too much sense and is too balanced and fair to be considered controversial OR to be implemented by Blizz (given their current track record).

I don't think you realize how far off you actually are when you throw this Idea out, it's 1 and a half weekly Valor caps to fully upgrade a piece of loot, people have already pointed out that it's essentially impossible to upgrade a full BiS set before a new tier is released so the whole point of upgrades would amount to picking the hand full of best Items to get the most return, if you made all 25 mans Fully upgraded you have just made an Ilevel barrier that no 10 man raider could ever match, it's no different than the system we had in Late Wrath where we had shared lockouts and different loot.

Folks, mods have already at least once said to stop the 10 vs 25 BS. This isn't the place for it. Really there is no place for it because not a single damn person will get their mind changed.

Back on topic:

Originally Posted by zuluslayer

Seperate achievements and lockouts for a start.

Separate achivements would only mean that 25-player guilds will steamroll the 10-player achievements. The only 10-player guild to ever get 10-player world firsts would be Paragon, and possibly not even them. Not because of any difficulty differences, but because the 25-player guilds have more players and alts to make tailored groups with.

Separate lockouts doesn't increase the incentive to run the size you wish. It increases the incentive to run both sizes. One can argue this should be the goal, but it is not Blizz's goal and this is not what is going to happen. They don't want 25-player guilds to feel compelled to run 10, and they don't want 10-player guilds to feel compelled to run 25. They want to give more reason for people who prefer 25-player to raid it, despite the logistical difficulties that are inherent to 25.

They've already forced people to funnel into 10m by allowing that option in the first place and it doesn't appear they are willing to go back from that.

For the love of god I think if I see this kind of statement again I'm going to throw up from an overdose of stupid.

It is not in any way shape or form Forcing people to do 10s if you ALLOW the option. When the change happened there were no 10 man progression raiding groups for the most part because 10 man heroic fights gave the same Ilevel loot as 25 man normal, so all the people who were raiding at the time in any kind of serious way were already in a 25 man group. all that was required to stay with 25 man if that is what the majority of people really wanted was to do NOTHING! But we have seen a trend where people have broken off formed new guilds recruited people and formed many 10 man guilds to raid now, this is not a sign of being Forced, this is a sign of a choice, the only people who are being Forced are the people left in the 25 man guild after everyone who really didn't want to be there left. you have 2 options here, go out and beg Blizz to make the 10 man raiders come back ( this makes you a dick btw ) or go out and find other like minded people who want to raid 25 mans and recruit them or do joint guild runs with them, this is completely your option and there is nothing that Blizz or 10 man raiders can or are doing to stop you. It's already been said multiple times, that in a 25 man there is more loot per raider per kill, and that with the larger number of people you have a much smaller chance of gear not being used for a main spec until the group is pretty much geared, so 25s is already a better option from a gear perspective, and people are still choosing 10 mans, please if you love 25 mans so much go out find the other people who love them too, and raid with those people stop trying to make blizz force people who don't want to raid 25s come back this is a childish and pathetic solution to a problem that is only a problem to people who want 25 man raids.

---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 12:41 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Count Zero

Separate lockouts doesn't increase the incentive to run the size you wish. It increases the incentive to run both sizes. One can argue this should be the goal, but it is not Blizz's goal and this is not what is going to happen. They don't want 25-player guilds to feel compelled to run 10, and they don't want 10-player guilds to feel compelled to run 25. They want to give more reason for people who prefer 25-player to raid it, despite the logistical difficulties that are inherent to 25.

you kind of side stepped the point I think here, this isn't actually a problem at all. they want people to prefer something they don't currently prefer when they have every opportunity to prefer it now. it's no different than if an Ice cream shop only had one flavor then suddenly they went from just Vanilla to Vanilla and chocolate, and then suddenly didn't like the fact that so many people bought the Chocolate that the Vanilla wasn't getting used up.

The Players have told Blizz what they want by the choices they have made in game, Blizz doesn't like the answer they got, or perhaps they don't like the feedback they are getting from the portion of the player base that wants 25 man raiding but aren't in guilds that were able to raid 25s without forcing 10 man raiders to fill slots. Now Blizz is in the no win situation of trying to make people like something they don't actually like, but unlike the Ice cream shop guy they can't just dump Strawberry topping on the Vanilla and watch it sell.

So, people do 10m because it's easier to assemble for the same gear acquired? No way!

If they were that concerned with the loot, and can do 25, then what is the problem? That's their choice. If they can't do 25 because they legit can't get 25 people, then they do 10 and have fun with their friends anyway?

Could put the exact same argument for having 10 man give higher ilvl...

Why should the majority of the raiders (10 man) have to make a new guild or recruit two thirds of a new guild to raid 25 or leave their current guilds just because 25 player raids think they are entitled to better gear. If 25 player raiders don't want to make the effort for 25 man (and it isn't an effort for most of them... it's only the officers anyway) then they can just go 10 and get the same loot and have "fun" while doing so without all this imaginary extra stress that it's claimed 25 player has.

I raided 25 player in a top 100 guild all through BC till the end of WOTLK and it was certainly no more stressful for me. And I know that this thread isn't exactly about 10 vs 25 player difficulty but some fights are harder on 10 and that's just a fact (i'm not saying most fights are harder on 10 but some definitely are).

you kind of side stepped the point I think here, this isn't actually a problem at all. they want people to prefer something they don't currently prefer when they have every opportunity to prefer it now. it's no different than if an Ice cream shop only had one flavor then suddenly they went from just Vanilla to Vanilla and chocolate, and then suddenly didn't like the fact that so many people bought the Chocolate that the Vanilla wasn't getting used up.

The Players have told Blizz what they want by the choices they have made in game, Blizz doesn't like the answer they got, or perhaps they don't like the feedback they are getting from the portion of the player base that wants 25 man raiding but aren't in guilds that were able to raid 25s without forcing 10 man raiders to fill slots. Now Blizz is in the no win situation of trying to make people like something they don't actually like, but unlike the Ice cream shop guy they can't just dump Strawberry topping on the Vanilla and watch it sell.

But there are people who run 10s despite preferring 25, but can't do what they want because there is simply more work involved in getting a 25-player raid set up. It's simply harder to manage more people. Blizz has said before and I agree with them that logistical burden is borne largely by just the officers -- many of whom simply say, "why bother", and splinter off into 10-player guilds with less work but same reward.

25-player guilds are disappearing from servers. My guild is literally the only 25-player-focused guild on my server. Used to be all the best ones were 25-player. Now, total server population has dropped significantly, and I can't help but wonder how much of that has to do with there being fewer chances for someone to get into a 25-player raid. I know for a fact some of the guilds who transferred off left because the raider pool here has diminished.

This is what Blizz is trying to address -- folks who want to raid 25 but don't feel it's worth the extra effort, or folks who want to but can't because there aren't enough 25-player guilds.

25man doesn't need more imo, what they lack are players willing to play 25man and Blizzard shouldn't force us to play 25mans

Me & my guild played 25mans because it gave us better gear, but having been officer/guildleader from Vanilla (40m) -> TBC/WRATH (25m) -> Cata/MoP (10m), i only applauded every time the guild got smaller. We know eachother alot better and therefor played/interacted better with another. I think this is what makes alot of players think that 10mans have it easier than 25. But I think it's because 25mans have a problem of not knowing who you're exactly playing with... The overturn in 25man is too big, a 10man finds 1 new player every few months or so, a 25man needs to find one every few weeks?

I raided 25 player in a top 100 guild all through BC till the end of WOTLK and it was certainly no more stressful for me.

Just curious ... were you an officer / raid leader / GM ?

Raiding became a lot more stressful when I became an officer. Then even more stressful when I became GM. Much of that stress would vanish if we decided to focus on 10s instead of 25 (even though we're running two 10s right now because the raider pool on our server has been steadily shrinking since Wrath and it's difficult to recruit), because I'd have to worry about the desires of fewer people.

As a dude who raids in both 10s and 25s, I find this entire discussion pretty fucking stupid. 10s are easier in some situations, 25s are more difficult in others.

I find the best argument in favour of superior 25m rewards that any group of 25 can be improved by taking the best 10 players and switching to 10m. Since raiding is by definition progress-orientated, some material incentive for 25m groups seems appropriate.

However, any measure Blizzard could conceivably take (from raising ilvls on 25m to abandoning the format altogether) will be controversial. So this tweet tells us very little.

Some people prefer challenge? I already told you that's exactly the reason best guilds, best players, the most dedicated ones are playing 25 man.

Not to mention they get more gear and have a wider more flexible raid structure while still being able to maintain a relatively narrow range of skill thanks to the level of players involved. You know - all the advantages of 10s as well as 25s.

Paragon stated they would rather raid 25 man but they can't atm.

Because they prefer an all Finnish guild.

Yeah GC said that 25 man are logistically harder but he never stated that it's outside of the raid only.

So, you are right simply by virtue that Blizzard never said you are wrong? You may be right, but last I checked you don't tend torecruit in a raid, you don't often start farming for mats and you usually don't end up doing any of those logistical activities GC was on about.

Do you really think 25 man is less logistically challenging than 10 man in any way?

In some ways..its harder. In other ways...easier. There SHOULD also be more players in 25s willing to help out; part of the problem is that too often there aren't

You should also add that GC said that 25 man is more complex, I don't think any sane person would argue that.

Blizzard also stated 10s required more pesonal responsibility, but that statement regularly gets shot down whenever its brought up.

If you scroll above I already explained how wrong you are about having less executional responsibility in 25 man, on any harder heroic boss you have more.

And others disagree with your personal analysis and your personal experience and feel that may or may mnot have accounted for the various factors involved that may or may not make your explanation valid.

And reason why we don't have 10man LFR is cos 95% of LFR population have no clue what's going on and they need to be carried. It's exact the opposite on 25 man hc on hardest bosses, you can't carry a single person.

Some of the interviews from players of the top elite guilds would have you believe otherwise, given some of the gaffes and mistakes some of their players make time and time again. As it is, the reason why 10 man LFR doesn't exist is for a number of factors. Tank and healer ratios is one you seemingly dismiss with the above statement.

I think they should make 25m raids cross-realm, because often on smaller servers there just aren't enough people for a decent 25m raid team. That way raiders, who don't want to do 10m, won't have to change servers all the time. It is already kind of happening with a delay of 1 raid tier, but I really don't see a good reason to delay it that much. Personally I wouldn't mind if all the raids would be cross-realm for both 25 and 10m, but if blizzard really wants to give some extra rewards/options for 25m raiders, then x-realm raiding would be definitely a valid solution.

Do you know why is dps higher in 25 man? It's because it's designed with having all raid buffs around and more cds due...guess what, needing more dps per player to meet enrage timer on every single boss.Tighter enrage timer, more damage on the raid, more dps needed per person in 25 man setting require more raid wide cooldowns otherwise it would be impossible to kill bosses.

Hmmm...yes. You balance around what you have. 25s will have those CDs, they will have them available more often, they will have all the buffs, they will have higher uptime and as a result, the boss require more DPS per player to bring down.

Why would you balance any other way? Each player in a 25 gets his DPS boosted simply because he's in a 25. The game system simply recognises that and requires more personal DPS....but not more personal effort.

That's so ridiculous...That coming from a guy that said 10 mans have tighter enrage timers. I asked you above and gave you example of DPS checks last two tiers for both 10 and 25 man with numbers. If you want to prove your 'theory' you have a nice chance now. So let's hear it.

Your examples are overly simplistic and overlook numerous factors involved in balance. They look good, they look correct on first glance but they fall apart anytime people think about them. Your point above wrt to DPS is one such example...you seem annoyed that 25s require a higher personal DPS but don't seem to accept the reasons why 25s require a higher personal DPS. You point the reasons out, but don't seem to want to accept them as valid, that players in 25s should have the same personal DPS needs as 10s and then get all those extras buffs and CDs as extras.

Originally Posted by Maleric

And the square root of pi divided by the reciprocal of 10 is larger than the square root of pi divided by the reciprocal of 25, so 10s are also harder in that regard.

/makes about as much sense.

No...he makes perfect sense. The best 10 players in a 25 man guild will have a higher skill level than the guild as a whole. If you take those 10 players, and place them in a 10 man dungeon, they likely have a higher skill than the dungeon was balanced around...and better gear thanks to gearing in 25s. As a result, if they split off and form a 10, they start having better a higher iLevel than pure 10s who never went 25, and likely have a higher skillcap than it was balanced for, work well as they've been in a guld together and so will essentially steamroller the dungeon.

On any cutting edge progression fight where you are tight against the enrage timer, you can't afford to lose anyone, whether in 10 man or 25 man. The notion that you can lose multiple people in 25 man raids and kill the boss but it's a wipe if 1 person dies in 10 man is something that is confined to normal modes and farm status content. If you need everyone up to get the kill, and this is more often than not the case on hard progression bosses even in 25 man, 25 man is much harder than 10 man because (1) the raw DPS requirements are significantly higher to begin with (2) It is 250% as likely that you lose someone to lag/DC/brain fart in a 25 man raid on any given pull, It's probably even more than 250% more likely because 25 mans are more demanding on computer hardware.

10 mans are just flat out designed around a significantly lower DPS requirement because you can't assume every major raid buff will be present. However, any progression level 10 man HM guild will built their raid comp around maximum buff coverage. Therefore, they are able to attain a greater level of raid buffs than the DPS requirements are balanced around. Meanwhile, 25 mans are balanced around having every raid buff, so they don't have that option, and the effect of more Stormlash/Banners doesn't come close to making up that difference.

On top of that, any mechanic where one individual raider can wipe the raid due to a mistake (classic example - Defile) is much harder on 25 man than 10 man because there are 2.5 times as many people to make that mistake. Any fight which requires being spread X yards apart is much harder on 25 man than 10 man due to having 250% more people in the same area.

Realistically, it's only in normal modes that 25 mans can even remotely be considered easier. For anything difficult, they are far more difficult.

Not to mention they get more gear and have a wider more flexible raid structure while still being able to maintain a relatively narrow range of skill thanks to the level of players involved. You know - all the advantages of 10s as well as 25s.

Because they prefer an all Finnish guild.

So, you are right simply by virtue that Blizzard never said you are wrong? You may be right, but last I checked you don't tend torecruit in a raid, you don't often start farming for mats and you usually don't end up doing any of those logistical activities GC was on about.

In some ways..its harder. In other ways...easier. There SHOULD also be more players in 25s willing to help out; part of the problem is that too often there aren't

Blizzard also stated 10s required more pesonal responsibility, but that statement regularly gets shot down whenever its brought up.

And others disagree with your personal analysis and your personal experience and feel that may or may mnot have accounted for the various factors involved that may or may not make your explanation valid.

Some of the interviews from players of the top elite guilds would have you believe otherwise, given some of the gaffes and mistakes some of their players make time and time again. As it is, the reason why 10 man LFR doesn't exist is for a number of factors. Tank and healer ratios is one you seemingly dismiss with the above statement.

EJL

Are you really going to argue that 25 man doesn't have tighter enrage timer on every harder dps check for at least 3 last tiers? And not by a small margin either.

Are you really going to argue that 25 man doesn't have tighter enrage timer on every harder dps check for at least 3 last tiers? And not by a small margin either.

You keep arguing that 25s require a higher personal DPS as if this is proof. What you don't seem to be acknowledging is that due to the fact that 25s have more CDs available more frequently, differences in personal uptimes on the targets, a guaranteed full load of buffs and so on that balancing around a higher personal DPS is both necessary and requires little or no extra effort on the part of the player involved.

You balance the encounter around what is there. 10s are easier to skew in your favor if you want progression because you can arrange things so you will enter with a better starting gear level earlier on, a higher personal skill level, arrange to have all the buffs covered and all CDs available and so on. And as a result, players who go that route will have an easier time. Why? Because these players aren't after a challenge. They are after the goodies. And Blizzard cannot really balance an encounter around such players because, by definition, they are exceptional and are taking advantage of an aspect that exists from simply having two size formats.

No...he makes perfect sense. The best 10 players in a 25 man guild will have a higher skill level than the guild as a whole. If you take those 10 players, and place them in a 10 man dungeon, they likely have a higher skill than the dungeon was balanced around...and better gear thanks to gearing in 25s. As a result, if they split off and form a 10, they start having better a higher iLevel than pure 10s who never went 25, and likely have a higher skillcap than it was balanced for, work well as they've been in a guld together and so will essentially steamroller the dungeon.

There's a huge logical leap from "the best ten members of a twenty-five man guild have a higher average skill than the guild as a whole" to "tens have higher average skill than twenty-fives."